Star Ball
by Chiiyo86
Summary: You have a good life - a girlfriend, a job, a house. You think you know what happiness means, you think you know what is real and what isn't. You don't. Open your eyes.


A/N: _It's an old fic that I never reposted from LJ, written for the spn_reversebang challenge. You can find the art it was written for by going to my LJ (link on my profile), and looking for the fic in my master list. Thank you to my artist, sugareey, for the awesome prompt and for letting me freedom to write what I wanted, to my beta, wave obscura._

Warnings: _sexual situations, dubcon._

Disclaimer: _I don't own anything Supernatural related._

ooo

He's running. Running though the woods, in the dark, the sound of his own breathing loud and clear in the silence, and at first he thinks he's running away from something but then he realizes he's got a rifle in his hands. Not running away, no; he's _chasing._

Something like fear or disgust makes his stomach churn, but his hands are steady on the gun, his strides regular and powerful. It's like he's watching his body move without his permission, like he's a spectator in the back of his own mind. He stops suddenly, raises his gun and shoots, once, twice, and he feels his whole body vibrate with the recoil. He hears a yelp, the pained cry of something that isn't human. He walks slowly to the source of the noise, gun pointed in front of him.

"You got it?" asks a male voice, from somewhere on his right.

He doesn't turn to see who's speaking.

"I think so, gotta check," he says.

"Stay here, I'm gonna check."

"But, Dad, I can…"

"Werewolves are no joke, they're vicious creatures, I want you to _stand. back._Is that clear?"

He still can't see very well the man – _Dad_– he's talking to, just that he's tall and broad-shouldered, but the steely authority in his voice is irresistible. Frustration rushes through him, but the feeling is foreign.

"Yeah," he mumbles.

"Yes, what?"

He straightens, tries to inject some conviction in his voice.

"Yes, sir!"

"Good."

With that single word, the man is gone, swallowed by darkness, and he finds himself alone for a few minutes, until he hears another gunshot, and the man calls, "Alright, Dean, get over here!"

He doesn't want to go, doesn't want to see what is this thing that just died, but his feet move against his will, until he can see the beam of a flashlight tear through the darkness. The man is standing there, looking down. He's wearing jeans and a leather jacket, holding a shotgun in his right hand and a flashlight in his left. The light falls on a mass of fur darkened by blood, bigger than any animal he's ever seen, and his eyes travel on the big body, noticing the claws, the fangs. Werewolf.

_I'm dreaming, _he thinks, and it all seems so real and yet he knows he's in a dream, thinks he can feel the mattress under his body, the sheets, the softness of a pillow under his cheek.

The man, Dad, raises his head and looks at him, the hint of a smile barely distinguishable in the dark.

"That was a great shot. Good job, Dean."

It's crazy, there's no other word for it, but it's okay because it's all a dream. He's sure of it, now. He's sure, because his name isn't Dean.

ooo

"Baby, can you come here a sec, I need help. Jim? Hurry up, Jim, hurry, I'm gonna…"

Jim put the box he was holding on the floor, rushes to her side and grabs her box before it could slide from her hands.

"Phew, thank you."

Renee leans against the doorframe and rubs her face tiredly.

"You okay?" he asks.

She sighs and gives him a washed smile.

"Yeah, I'm just so tired, I can barely see straight. I hate moving."

"You're telling me."

Jim's tired too, aching all over – his back and his arms, especially, feel on fire. He has a look around the living room and all the boxes piling up makes him feel suddenly so weary that he lets himself slide against the wall until his ass hits the floor.

"Hey."

He feels Renee sit besides him.

"Are _you _okay?"

He turns his head and finds her face barely a few inches from his, her hair brushing his shoulder. Impulsively, he leans forward to kiss her on the nose.

"Hey!" She cuffs the back of his head, so softly he can barely feel it.

"You hit like a girl," he says, chuckling.

"Fuck you," she says, but she's laughing too, leaning against him and wriggling her hand between their bodies to grab his hand. She squeezes it briefly, then lets it go and stands up in a swift motion. From his lower point of view, he admires the way her jeans hug her ass. She glances down at him from above her shoulder.

"Go back to work, you pervert," she says. "I want the trunk to be unloaded before dark, at least. I still don't know how I'm going to arrange the living room…"

Her fingers combs through her hair while she's looking at the space in front of her, her brow furrowed. He follows her gaze and tries to imagine the room as a living space, with furniture and their everyday junk laying around. His mind comes blank.

"Okay, I'm leaving that to you," he says, "I'm going to manly unload the truck."

"You do that."

Come that evening, it's starting to look more like a place to live and less like an empty house. They're cuddled on their bed, that's standing proudly in the middle of a room filled with boxes and a dresser. Jim's so tired that his body feels like it's sinking through the mattress, but his mind isn't letting him go to sleep, and he's just laying around, aware only the heat of Renee's body against his. He just can't stop thinking about the dream he had, the werewolf, the name this man called him – Dean. It sounds… not exactly familiar, but it makes him uneasy. It fills him with dread, like something unpleasant is waiting for him around the corner.

"Hmm." Renee moves against him, half-awake and rubbing her nose against his shoulder. "You can't sleep?"

"I'm okay, go back to sleep."

"Too excited about the new house?"

He doesn't say anything, because he doesn't know what he's feeling but excited isn't the right word. There's no noise outside, their room is dark, and he feels so detached from himself that he thinks he's going to dissolve into nothing, or that the world around him is going to disappear. It's just the new house, he tells himself. New house, new life, new friends, and it isn't home yet.

Renee squeezes against him, slides a hand under the sheet to rub circles on his chest.

"We're gonna be happy here, together. You'll see."

"I know, babe. I'm just tired."

"Sleep."

She moves her hand to cup his cheek and he feels his eyelids droop.

"Just sleep, honey. Everything will look better in the morning."

ooo

He's running again, a shotgun in his hands – _again. Fucking dream._It should make him feel better, this awareness that nothing here is real, that he's safely asleep in his bed with… But why is his heart pounding in his ears?

He barges into a room, has barely the time to notice a tall man with a large hat, and… wait, is that a _hook?_

"Sam, drop!" he shouts.

He shoots the man, who dissolves into smoke and shadow, revealing a young man and a young woman sitting on the floor, looking shocked and breathless.

"I thought we got all the silver," the young guy says, panting. His unruly mass of hair makes him look like a fluffy puppy.

"So did I," he says, though he has no idea what he's talking about. He tries to make himself snap out of the dream, but his body feels heavy and weary, and it takes too much energy to fight the blanket of sleep.

"Then why is he still here?"

"Well, maybe we missed something!"

He looks at the room, half-lit from a lamp on a desk, big windows with colored window panes. It seems that they're in a church or something, but the place feels threatening, not peaceful and comforting.

The two kids are talking "Lori, where did you get that chain?" the young man is asking.

"My father gave it to me."

"Where'd your dad get it?" he asks. He wants to be afraid, but he's focused, and the situation feels strangely familiar in its craziness.

"He said it was a church heirloom," Lori says, "he gave it to me when I started school."

"Is it silver?" the young man asks, urgency in his voice.

"Yes!"

And without any other warning, the guy rips the chain from the girl's neck. There's a horrible screeching noise behind him, closer and closer, and he doesn't want to turn around but it's not like the dream is giving him any choice, so he turns his head slowly, sees the scratch on the hallway's wall progressing towards him, bits of plaster projected on the sides. Sharp terror surges through him, feeling like ice in his veins. It should paralyze him, but it propels him into action.

"Sam!" he yells, and throws his shotgun.

ooo

"You look tired. You didn't sleep well?"

He's looking at himself in the mirror, at his unshaven face, uncombed hair, and sunken eyes. Renee's face pops up in the reflection, and she rests her head against his shoulder, always affectionate in the morning, like a cat.

"Honey?"

Her eyes are following his in the mirror, and she has a concerned frown but when she repeats the question, "Jim, are you okay?" there's no mistaking the demand in her voice. She doesn't like being ignored.

"I'm okay," he says, and it's the truth, he just feels a little tired and off. "I'm just having these weird dreams," he adds. He knows that a three words response doesn't cut it when Renee's worried.

"What kind of dreams?"

He's still looking at their reflections in the mirror, and notices how the reversed image makes her face look pointier, and her nose a little crooked. Her fingers go to the pearl she wears as a necklace and she plays with it, waiting.

"Oh, just crazy stuff, you know how it is. Werewolves, the Hookman. In my dreams I'm like Buffy, hunting the bad guys. But without the heels and the pointy stick."

He gives her a crooked smile, and she chuckles, pats his cheek.

"You watch too much TV," she says.

"Yeah, that's probably it."

She steps away from him and disappears from his sightline. He sighs and rubs his scratchy cheek, feeling weary at the idea of going through the process of shaving. He's tempted not to do it, but he knows it's just going to make his face itchy, and if the day is as hot as the forecast says it will be it won't do anything for his mood.

"Sweetie?"

He glances above his shoulder, and sees Renee leaning against the bathroom door, wearing only her panties and her necklace, the pearl hanging at the top of her cleavage.

"You want to help me put on my dress?"

He smirks.

"You're asking me?"

"Well, yes, I think I am."

He moves forward, and she takes a step back, disappearing behind the door into their bedroom. He follows her quickly, grabs her by the wrist and draws her to him until their faces are so close that he can feel her breath against his lips.

"Don't you have to get ready for work?" he says in a low voice.

"Don't you?"

He feels her hand run down his back to cup his ass.

"My shift is in two hours," he says.

"Then we can spare ten minutes, can't we?"

"Hey!" he protests.

She pushes him, and his shoulders hit the wall with enough force that he winces. She presses against him and whispers, "Prove me wrong."

He's too hard to have any more words or thoughts to spare.

ooo

He's there again. Not that the location looks like anything like in his other dreams – it's a well-lit, two-bed, gray wallpaper and pink bedspreads room. He still can feel it. The colors are washed out, not as bright as in the real world, but the sounds are louder, more distinct. A man that he's never seen here before is standing in front of him. He's wearing a trench coat and a loose tie, and the look on his face is beyond despair – it's resignation.

"I don't need it," the man's saying, before he throws something.

He catches it and looks at it – it's some kind of pendant, a golden head with horns, and it looks pretty cheesy but he feels his mouth dry and his heart beat faster. He doesn't know what it is but he knows it's important. _I'm dreaming,_ he thinks, because it's suddenly essential that he reminds himself that nothing that happens here really matters. He takes the cord between his fingers and lets the pendant drop and hang, swaying slightly.

"It's worthless," the man in the trench coat says.

"Cas, wait," someone calls from behind – the voice is familiar, it's the young man again, Sam – but it's too late, the trench coat guy isn't here anymore. He didn't go through the door, though. He simply disappeared, vanished into the thin air in the most literal way.

"We'll find another way," Sam says.

"How?" he asks.

"We'll find it. You and me," Sam says, and he looks older and bulkier than before, wearier, but also weirdly intense.

He pulls a bag over his shoulder and walks to the door, but before he opens it he stops at the trashcan and let the pendant hang above it. There're a few heartbeats of ominous silence, and he hears Sam's sharp intake of breath. Then he opens his hand, and the pendant hits the bottom of the trashcan with a thump.

ooo

Work drags along, that day. He sits behind the big wheel of his bus, counts the hours, the minutes, the seconds, and it just makes the day feel longer. His mind keeps going back to the dream he had that night. It was pretty innocuous compared to the others, but he still feels something tug at his heart, thinking of the noise the pendant had made falling into the trashcan. He smiles at the people climbing in, as usual, says _hello_ and _how ya doing today _with the same smile he always has, but the corners of his mouth feel stiff.

He prides himself to be a good listener and the regulars know that they could talk his ear off without bothering him, but today he's totally tuning Mrs. Houston out and he feels just a little bad about it.

"And my grand-daughter is the sweetest baby ever, she's all smile, barely cries, and blah, blah, blah."

It's one of those days. He enjoys his job, he does, he likes being behind the wheel and driving around, he likes people and the bits and pieces of their lives he's privy to. But sometimes, yeah, it's also fucking boring and he wants his shift to be over already.

"Blah, blah, blah, Dean, blah, blah."

"What?"

"What do you mean, what?"

"What did you just say? About… Dean."

"You weren't listening," she says, her voice reproachful.

He diverts his eyes from the road a second to glance in the rearview mirror and sees her shake her head. He smiles sheepishly and shrugs in what he hopes is an adorably impudent manner.

"I was talking about _James Dean,_ my daughter gave me one of those DVDs, it was _Rebel Without a Cause_, and gosh, that man was good looking…"

_Oh._

There must have been something in his posture, on his face, or maybe he said something without realizing it because Mrs. Houston asks, "Are you okay?"

He's heard that question too many times lately. _Dude, get your shit together._

"I'm fine," he says. "I'm just overworked I guess."

"Aren't we all," Mrs. Houston says philosophically, even though she's retired.

He nods, and yawns. He's going to get to bed early tonight, no reading, no TV, and maybe his mind will shut up. Maybe.

"It's good to see you again, Dean."

He doesn't know the woman who's speaking to him, but there's that name again so he knows he's dreaming. His name isn't Dean, damn it, but he can't help but wonder at the strange consistency of his dreams.

She's dark-headed and petite and looking annoyingly smug, which makes him feel suddenly and irrationally murderous.

"Ruby?" he says.

She smiles and purses her lips in a "well, yes" expression, and he turns to see a young man. It's Sam, wide-eyed with anguish. It's dark, so he can't make out a lot, but they're in what looks like an abandoned warehouse.

"Is that Ruby?" he asks when the young man doesn't answer.

No answer, and he looks again at the girl, Ruby, sees the smile on her face fade and feels a dark satisfaction at that. The feeling mutates into rage and hatred so sudden it's sickening, and it's almost as unexpected for him than it is for the others when he launches himself at the girl, pins her against a wire fence and draws a knife, ready to strike her. The feelings whirling inside him are so vivid, so powerful that for once he doesn't feel like the unwilling spectator of an interactive movie, he feels lost in the moment, wants her to die, die, die. _Go to hell, bitch. Fucking go to hell where you belong._

"Don't!" Sam yells and blocks his wrist, fights him for the knife and manages to get it out of his hand. There are a few seconds of indistinct struggle, a flurry of arms and blows and overwhelming feelings, and then he finds himself held against the fence by Ruby. Her arm is pressed against his throat with unusual strength for a girl of her size, her face is distorted by hatred that rivals his own, and he tries to draw a breath but the pressure is painful and he can't…

"Ruby, stop it!"

He can't breathe…

ooo

He wakes up gasping, sitting bolt upright in his bed, and his hands go immediately to his throat. There's nothing, but he still feels some phantom pressure, and starts coughing.

"Baby, you're okay? What's going on?"

He can't speak but he nods, hoping it's enough to reassure Renee. There's a soft pressure on his back, and he feels her small hand rub up and down.

"Talk to me, Jimmy," she pleads. "Should I call 911?"

"No!" he blurts out, and pushes her away with more force than he wanted.

"I'm sorry," he says, feeling immediately guilty.

"What happened?"

"A nightmare. Just a nightmare."

There's a silence, long enough that he wonders if he pissed her off, but the dark's hiding her face and he feels detached enough than he doesn't care about it as much as about almost dying in his dreams.

"Maybe you should see someone," she finally says.

"Don't be stupid, Renee, it was just a nightmare."

"Okay, then don't think about it anymore."

"I won't."

He throws his legs out of the bed, rests his elbows on his knees and buries his face in his hands for a few seconds. Then he stands up, and goes to the bathroom. He fumbles with the switch and the sudden light made him blink. He stays there a moment, dazzled and dizzy.

"Honey?"

"Yeah, I'm good. Gotta take a leak."

He closes the door behind him, needing some privacy. He splashes some water on his face, then looks at himself in the mirror. He rubs a hand on his neck, still feeling some lingering pain, but there doesn't seem to be any mark. He looks closer, until his nose is almost pressed against the mirror. There's nothing to see; yet it felt more real than any dream he's ever had. It's just a stupid dream, he decides. There's nothing else it could be, right? Nothing that makes sense, anyway.

He goes back to bed, and Renee immediately curls around him.

"Are you feeling better?" she whispers.

"Yeah, don't worry."

She kisses him on the shoulder.

"You should sleep."

He didn't think he could go back to sleep after that dream, but he was wrong. He closes his eyes, and sleep claims him.

ooo

He's sitting at a picnic table, for once out in the open, with beautiful scenery of mountains covered in trees, blue sky and fresh air. Sam's sitting in front of him, his brow furrowed, maybe squinting because of the sun, maybe worried or anxious.

"So what are you saying?" he asks.

"I'm in no shape to be hunting," Sam says. "I need to step back, 'cause I'm dangerous. Maybe it's best we just...go our separate ways."

"Well, I think you're right."

Sam looks stricken, and for some reason it hurts to see that look on his face. Sam opens his mouth, and at first nothing comes out.

"I was expecting a fight," he finally says.

"The truth is I spend more time worrying about you than about doing the job right." Sam gulps and looks down. "And I just, I can't afford that, you know? Not now."

Sam nods, not looking at him, then his mouth twists into something that isn't a smile.

"I'm sorry, Dean."

The words are loaded with a lot of things that he doesn't understand. But at that moment he wants to understand, because what he's feeling now is too big and too confusing, and if he _knew_, maybe it would be easier to bear.

"I know you are, Sam."

Sam keeps nodding, and throws a leg above the bench, about to get up.

"Hey, do you, uh, wanna take the Impala?"

"It's okay."

Sam stands up, takes a few steps, and turns back.

"Take care of yourself, Dean."

"Yeah, you too, Sammy."

Sam walks to a big shiny black car, grabs a backpack out of the back seat, and walks over to a pickup truck parked nearby. He says something inaudible to the driver and gets in the passenger side. The truck drives off, and he's watching, not doing anything but staying there and watching even though he can't quell that feeling that he should be standing up and stopping this.

He's feeling himself waking up. He wants to wake up, because though this dream is arguably better than, say, being strangled by a 5-foot girl, there's this horrible hole eating away at his insides and he wants really bad to leave this feeling behind and be back in the real world. But the picnic table remains stubbornly in front of him, the stupid mountains in the background. _Wake up, damn it, wake up._

"Dean," he hears.

He refuses to turn around – not my name, fuck you, not my name – and surprisingly it works.

"Dean, please." It's Sam's voice, which makes no sense. Sam is gone, he just left in that truck.

"What?" he snaps, and has another moment of surprise at realizing that he can speak up the way he wants to. It makes him curious enough that he finally turns around.

It's Sam, indeed, but he's looking different than before. He's wearing a different jacket and a different shirt, and he's breathless, leaning forward slightly like it's too much effort to straighten up. He's holding a shotgun, and… the weird pendant that he threw in the trashcan a couple of dreams ago. What the hell is it doing here?

"Who are you?" he asks, with all the authority he can manage, though he's scared. He's scared because the way his dreams work is changing, and he doesn't know what it means but he has a bad feeling about it.

"It's me, Sam," Sam says unhelpfully. "You gotta snap out of it, Dean. You're dreaming."

"I know that."

"No, I mean, you're _dreaming_, it's all a dream…"

"Tell me something I don't know. And get the fuck out of my head!"

"You don't…" Sam bits his lips, looking pained. "I gotta go, it's wearing off. Take that." He's holding out the pendant, shaking his hand insistently.

"I threw that thing in the trashcan." It's a stupid thing to say, he doesn't know why he's arguing in a dream.

"Oh, for God's…"

Sam walks to him, grabs his wrist before he has the time to protest, puts the pendant in his hand and forces his fingers to close around it.

"Wake up."

ooo

Jim opens his eyes in the dark, and he has a moment of panic before he feels the mattress under him and Renee's warmth at his back. He closes his eyes again for a second and lets out a relieved sigh. He moves a little in his bed, trying to find a comfortable position to go back to sleep. The movement traps his right hand between his hip and the mattress, and he feels something dig painfully into his palm.

Not wanting to turn up the light and risk waking up Renee, he feels it with his fingertips. There's a cord, something small and cold, lot of bumps. His breath catches when he recognizes the object. It's the pendant from his dream.

ooo

"What are you thinking about?"

Jim feels slender arms circling his waist and breasts pressing against his back. He wants to lean back, enjoy the contact and the affection, but a sudden irrational fear that Renee will feel the bulge of the pendant in his pocket stops him, and he tenses.

Her embrace loosens.

"What's the matter?" she asks.

"Nothing." He turns over the steaks on the barbecue. "I'm hot, that's all, and you're not helping."

He means to sound teasing. He probably isn't very convincing, because Renee lets go of him and steps to his side.

"Those dreams again?"

"No."

He doesn't know why he's lying to her. Maybe because there's no good explanation for what's happening to him. Dreams are one thing, they can be weird, they can be disturbing, but come the morning, they're still dreams and nothing else. Objects materializing in your hand, that's a new level of crazy.

She grabs his shoulder to force him to turn and look at her in the eye.

"You're telling me the truth, right? Because if these dreams are still bothering you, maybe you really should seek some help. I'm worried about you."

"I know, I'm sorry. I'm just having a hard time getting use to this new house, you know?"

He leans forward to kiss her. She holds herself stiff, not moving away, but not kissing back either.

"Hey. Are you mad at me?"

"I'm not mad."

But she's staring down, her arms crossed and her lips pursed.

"Really?" He noses her hair, kisses her earlobe, then trails kisses down her neck until she laughs. She pushes him away, but without any aggressiveness.

"Stop it," she says. "Everyone is looking at us."

He raises his head and indeed, most of their neighbors have stopped chatting and drinking and are watching them in amusement.

"Get back to work, mister. I shall go and entertain our guests."

The minute she's away, the anxiety he's felt all day is back in force, and he has to take a deep breath to calm the flutter of panic in chest, the feeling that the world's going to get turned upside down at any minute. Just because objects from his dreams are suddenly becoming real, it doesn't mean that anything else is going to happen, right?

"You're one lucky son of a bitch, you know that?"

He jumps, let go of the steak he's handling – the meat fells back on the grill and Jim feels drops of burning grease sting on his arm.

"Fuck," he mumbles.

"Wow, dude, I'm sorry." Someone chuckles on his right and he turns to glare at the asshole, a tall balding man who's nursing his beer like it's more precious than gold. If Jim remembers right, he's the guy living across the street and his name is… Richard? Robert?

"I'm Sam." The guy tips his beer. "Welcome to the neighborhood."

Jim winces. Sam's very common name, he tells himself. Plus, the guy looks nothing like…

"Sorry," he says, "too many names in one go, my brain's ready to fry." He forces a smile, wishing the man away while trying to hide it. Renee will kick his ass if he's rude to their new neighbors. "What were you saying?"

"Your girl, Renee, she's one hell of a woman."

Jim smiles again, more genuine this time.

"Yeah. Don't know what the hell she's doing with me."

"Where were you living before?"

"Santa Barbara."

"Nice town. Why did you move?"

"We…" What kind of question was that? "We wanted to…" His mouth stays open, nothing coming out. Why? Why did they move out?

"Dude, you okay? You look a little pale."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm…" _I don't remember why. I'm going crazy. My dreams are becoming real in the form of an ugly ass pendant and I don't. know._ "I'm hot. The barbecue."

"Maybe you should sit down. I can man the barbecue, if you don't mind me taking your tools."

He lets the man, Sam – _Sammy _– sit him on a low wall with large, soothing hands, and take his spatula away from him.

"I'm okay," he says to no one in particular. "I'm okay."

ooo

He's first aware of the screams, loud, animal cries of unbearable pain. He looks around and sees that he's standing in a suburban living room, then he looks down and sees… himself. He's contorting on the floor, yelling in pain, blood gushing from his chest while something invisible is tearing him apart. He watches for a moment in morbid fascination, feeling slightly nauseous but at the same time detached from what is happening to his double.

"Dean! Dean! Stop it!"

It's not his name, but it still makes him raise his head to find Sam with his back pressed against a wall, screaming and crying like he's the one getting torn apart – curiously, the distress in those cries makes his heart squeeze in a way his own bloody death doesn't. Nothing seems to restrain Sam but he acts like he's pinned by some invisible force, leaning forward and shaking, but not running to help.

There's also a blond young woman with eyes completely white, no iris or pupils, and she's laughing. He feels like laughing too, because this dream looks even more crazy and unreal than the others. He feels it bubble in his throat, and then he can't resist anymore and lets out a broken chuckle, while his other self's screams are progressively dying away.

"Glad you can find some humor in the situation."

He stops laughing and turns around. The trench coat guy from one of his dreams is there, drinking from a glass bottle, sitting on the living room floor – except it's not the living room anymore, it's some kind of cabin, and the guy isn't wearing a trench coat but a flannel shirt and jeans.

"You're not real," he says, feeling petty enough that he can find satisfaction in throwing that to the guy's face.

Unexpectedly, the guy puts his bottle on the ground and nods in agreement.

"Indeed, I'm not."

"Nothing here is real."

"No argument from me."

"What's your name, anyway?"

The man smiles, too wide for it to look genuinely happy.

"My name is Castiel, but you and Sam call me Cas."

"Sam? I don't even know that guy, I'm just dreaming about him. I don't know you either. And you just said you weren't real."

"You're dreaming, Dean. You're actually talking to yourself, which makes this whole conversation kind of pointless, I have to say."

"You're not telling me anything new. And my name isn't Dean."

"Really? Then what's your name?"

He opens his mouth to answer, slightly put off, but no answer comes. That's stupid, of course he knows his name. It's…

"Wake up, Dean."

ooo

The next day is like a dream. He goes to work but he doesn't really feel like he's there, he doesn't even have the energy or the desire to smile and greet the riders. Wake up, they keep telling him, Sam, Castiel, whoever they are, figments of his imagination or real people haunting his dreams. He wants to, he wants to wake up from this nightmare where nothing feels real, scarier than any monster.

"Dean."

That name again. He doesn't know if he's imagining it or picking up on someone's conversation, but he resolutely ignores it. He's tired of this shit. He wants to do his fucking job, and go back home.

"Dean, listen to me, I don't have much time."

He glances on the right, and startles. Sam's standing next to him, gripping the bar. He looks pale and ashen, and is breathing loudly.

_No, it can't be._

Jim glances in the rearview mirror to look at the riders, wondering if they're seeing Sam too or if it's all in his head. It's hard to say, there're no more than five or six people and they're all staring into nothing the way people on the bus always do.

"You can't be here," he says.

"We went over that," Sam says, a little impatiently. "You…"

"Who are _you_, damn it, why can't I get rid of you?"

Sam pinches his lips. His expression's hard to read, but Jim thinks he looks hurt. He doesn't have any right to look hurt, he isn't even fucking real. Do hallucinations have feelings?

"You really don't remember." Before Jim can say anything, he stops him with a curt gesture of the hand. "I don't have time for this. I need you to find something."

"Find what?"

He doesn't know why he's talking to a hallucination. He's definitely going crazy. What are the people on the bus going to think? Another glance in the rearview mirror tells him that no one's looking in his direction.

"_Hoshi no tama_– it's Japanese for "star ball". It's a small ball, or… or maybe a jewel. It contains its power, or its essence, so it must keep the ball close, and you have to…"

"It? I don't understand a word you're saying."

"It, her. It probably looks like a woman. You need to take the star ball from her. Dean, please, you have to be quick. You're dying."

"I _what_?"

But Sam has disappeared.

ooo

Jim's mind is twirling with thoughts and emotions that he has no control over. For the first time, he isn't eager to get home to his girlfriend. He feels dread at facing Renee, a feeling that he can't quite explain.

_It probably looks like a woman._

He shouldn't listen to Sam, because Sam isn't supposed to exist. Jim slides his hand in his jeans pocket and closes his finger around the pendant. It still feels as real as anything around him, as Sam looked and sounded real. There's no pretending that they're just a dream anymore. Somehow, they tore apart the thin barrier between dream and reality.

Jim realizes that he'd been standing for several minutes before the front door of his house when it opens suddenly.

"Jim? What are you doing, standing there? Why don't you come in?"

For several seconds he can't answer, can just look at her like he's never seen her before. Her heart-shaped face, pointy nose, almond eyes, the mole at the top of her right cheek, the little scar on her chin – they all look new to him, a stranger's face. He can't even tell if he finds her attractive, though he knows he's supposed to. Unease grows in his chest, and he swallows.

"Hey," he says.

"Are you feeling okay?"

She reaches out to touch his shoulder, and he can't help the instinctive movement of recoil.

"I'm good, don't worry. I need to take a shower, though, I was sweating all day."

He smiles at her, and she draws her hand back reluctantly, steps on the side to let him walk in.

The shower helps calm him down and clear his mind. He knows now that he can't keep ignoring the feeling that something is very wrong, pretend like the dreams, the pendant, Sam, the hole in his memories don't exist and don't matter. When he gets out of the shower he looks at himself in the mirror, and his reflection is the only thing here that feels familiar. He has to hang on to that.

Dinner's quiet. Renee keeps glancing at him, but is unusually silent, and he could swear that she looks more wary than worried. He doesn't know what to make of that, whether it's real or he's getting paranoid.

"Hey, Renee," he says, as casually as he can. "You know what Sam asked me yesterday at the barbecue?"

"I saw that you didn't feel well at one point, did you? What happened?"

"Dizzy spell. The heat, probably. So, you remember Sam?"

Renee's head is bent over her plate, paying rapt attention to her food, chasing green peas with her fork. He feels a surge of irritation.

"Hey, are you listening to me?"

She raises her head.

"What? Of course, I'm listening, to you. Sam, yes, I remember. Lives across the street, right?"

"Yeah, right. He asked me why we left Santa Barbara."

"And what did you tell him?"

He lets his knife and fork rest on his plate, pushes it away and crosses his arms on the table.

"You know what? I don't remember. Why did we move?"

She grabs her necklace, and the intentionality in the gesture strikes him. It doesn't look unconscious, it doesn't look like some nervous tic. Her grip's possessive, and she looks determined.

"We wanted to be closer to my mom. Remember? She lives two streets away, now."

She's doing something to him, he can feel it. An image forms into his mind, a woman with gray hair tied in a bun, delicate features and long elegant eyelashes, like Renee's. Renee's mom, that's what his mind is telling him, except he's past being fooled by it, too aware of the way this new memory doesn't quite fit yet with the rest. But he doesn't say anything, and spends the evening trying to act as normal as he can. He doesn't know what she is, has no idea what exactly she's doing to him, and because of this he can't confront her directly because if she decides to stop playing nice, he has a feeling it could get ugly real fast.

He barely sleeps, that night, too scared and too unsettled to find rest. He dozes off a few times and the images from his dreams are mixed and confused, series of unrelated images instead of full memories, but he can recognize some of the faces – the man in the leather jacket, _Dad_, the man in the trench coat, _Cas,_ and Sam, in all shapes and ages. A kid, a teenager, an adult, sleeping, eating, fighting, digging at night in graveyards. He startles awake around six in the morning, and suddenly one thing's clear, so obvious that he doesn't know how he could have ever forgotten it. Sam, who Sam is – his _brother_. It isn't that he remembers, his mind's too much of a mess for him to sort out his memories. No, he just _knows _it. The world's falling apart, but at least he has that to cling to.

He lets the week pass, careful not to change anything in his behavior and habits that could tip Renee off. He tries to look happy, but not overly cheerful. He goes to work, goes out for beer with his neighbors, watched TV on the couch with Renee and doesn't flinch when she slips her hands under his shirt and in his pants, lets her ride him and whisper soft _I love you_s to his ear. It isn't real. He doesn't know how it's possible, and it should probably freak him out more than it does, but he just feels numb and focused on his goal. Get his hands on Renee's necklace, and then maybe everything will make sense again.

"Have you had any more dreams, lately?"

It's Sunday morning; they're in their bed, lazily making out, and he feels himself tense when Renee stops kissing him to ask that question. He can't help the frightening thought that she suspects something. He runs a hand along her curves in an attempt to look relaxed and unconcerned.

"Not that I remember." He waits a beat before going on, "What prompted that question? Am I not distracting enough?"

His hand wanders on her breasts, his thumb playing with a nipple, making her bite her lip.

"I'm sorry." She tips her head to brush her lips against his. "The thought just popped into my head. I've been so worried about you." She moves her hand to the inside of his thigh, stopping a few inches from his dick. "I mean, you didn't seem to remember my mom the other day."

His hips jerk forward, trying to get her hand to move up a little. His mind's fuzzy, his thoughts all muddled.

"I'm okay," he says, not really knowing why.

"Good," she breathes.

Her tongue passes his lips and all thoughts give way to the feeling of heated skin and arousal. He presses closer, loving the feel of her breasts against his chest. God, he wants her, now, he can't wait any longer to be inside her. He grabs her thigh to open her to him, and she stops kissing him to let out a moan, rubbing urgently against him, encouraging him. Something hard, small and round, is digging in his chest, and he feels a small pang of annoyance before he realizes what it is – the pearl of Renee's necklace. His mind clears suddenly, like he had cold water splashed in his face, like a veil has been lifted and he can finally see. See what she's doing, distracting him, controlling him so he won't be aware of how fake everything around him is.

She pushes him on his back and straddles him, impaling herself on his cock with jerky motions of the hips. Pleasure surges through him, making it harder to focus, but the confusion from before stays away. He knows then that it's the occasion he'd been waiting for – he's not a threat to her, she thinks she has him under control and that makes _her_vulnerable. He slowly moves his hands from her hips to her shoulders, and to the back of her neck, drawing her to him so they can kiss. His fingers find the lock of the chain holding her pearl, but at first he just feels it with his fingertips, trying to figure how to unlock it quickly before she has the time to realize what he's doing. He thrusts harder inside her, and she's riding him with abandon until he feels her squeeze convulsively on his dick as she comes. He hisses, but his fingers are ready for that moment and he unlocks the chain, grabs the necklace and pushes her off simultaneously.

She falls of the bed and yelps in pain as she hits the ground with a thump. The pang of guilt he feels when he hears her cry out takes him by surprise, but he pushes it away, jumps on the other side of the bed, as far as possible from her, hiding his right hand behind his back. The pearl is unnaturally warm against his palm, almost pulsating, _alive_. He has to resist tossing it away.

"Jimmy, baby, what are you doing?"

She's pushed herself from the floor and is standing in all her naked glory. She's never been bashful about her body, is beautiful and knows it. She also looks way too calm for someone whose boyfriend has just thrown her out of bed for no good reason.

"Stop pretending, I'm sick of this game."

Her brow furrows in confusion.

"What do you mean?"

"I know what you are!"

He doesn't, not really, but that's beside the point.

"Just give it back to me. Don't do anything stupid."

She holds out her hand, smiling in a reassuring way, but he can see her control wearing down.

"Come closer, and I destroy it," he says.

"No!" She takes a deep breath. "What do you think you're going to accomplish by doing that? You can't fight me."

She's changing, so subtly that it looks like a trick of the light. Her face's looking longer, her eyes more slanted. Shadows are moving behind her, like long furry tails wriggling angrily. His heart's pounding, so loud it sounds like the noise is filling the room. He tries to swallow his fear but his mouth is too dry. She doesn't look human.

"No," he says, gathering every ounce of courage he has in him. "No, I can't. But I can negotiate."

ooo

Light's hurting his eyes, air is burning his lungs, too strong, too real. He lets out a moan, tries to curl on his side but his body isn't responding the way he wants it to. He feels a hand on his shoulder and starts to struggle weakly, trying to get his hand to move enough to throw a punch.

"Dean, calm down, it's me, it's Sam. You're safe, now."

Sam. He stops moving, too tired to keep fighting, though his heart is still going a thousand miles a minute. Sam. That means it's okay, right? He's okay. He feels something wet running down his cheeks, as his heartbeat is slowing down. Tears. It doesn't feel okay, but he's too exhausted to figure it out.

"You're safe," Sam repeats. "Everything is gonna be alright."

He lets darkness swallow him again.

ooo

The next time he wakes up, he's in an unknown, unremarkable motel room. His eyes open and he just stares at the ceiling until he hears Sam call quietly, "Dean. Hey, you're awake."

His brother sits by his bed. He looks as tired as Dean feels, unshaven and disheveled, with dark shadows under his eyes.

"How you feeling?"

"Tired," Dean says.

It's a euphemism. He feels drained of everything. There's something in his hand, and he wriggles it from under the covers to look at what it is. It's a small ball, the size of a golf ball, with teeth marks on it. It doesn't look like the powerful object he knows it is.

"So this is it," Sam says. "_Hoshi no Tama_."

He reaches out to touch it but Dean closes his fingers on it. Sam's hand falls back on his lap, and he gives Dean an odd look.

"What are you gonna do with it?"

"Keep it. I promised… I promised her I wouldn't destroy it, would keep it safe. She'll die if I do."

"Good." Sam's eyes darken. "We should destroy it, put an end to this hunt."

"No."

"Dean. She was killing you. She was draining you of your life force. We can't let her get away, she'll do it to other people."

"No, she won't. Not as long as I have this thing. She… what was she, anyway?"

"A _kitsune_, a Japanese fox spirit. They're powerful illusionists."

Dean closes his eyes, focuses on the pulsating warmth of the star ball in his hand.

"So it was all a dream?"

"Yes. I didn't know where she'd taken you, so I tried to contact you using dream root. It wasn't easy, she fought me all the way. And Dean, she wasn't really a woman, you know that, right? It's just one the shapes the kitsune takes."

"I don't…"

Sam rubs his forehead tiredly and sighs.

"No, listen to me. Whoever it made you think it was, it wasn't true. You…"

"Sam, shut up."

Dean doesn't know why he feels like his heart is breaking. He's safe, he's okay. He could have died but he didn't, like a hundred other hunts. The image of Renee haunts him, though, filling him with both disgust and longing. She invaded his mind, tweaked with his memories, twisted his thoughts and feelings, and he can't stop thinking about her smile, about his hand in her hair, about her lips against his. He remembers the sorrow in her eyes right before he woke up. It wasn't real, he knows that. But it felt real.

"Dean, you okay?"

Sam's fingers brush against his arm, but Dean keeps his eyes closed. He isn't ready for the real world yet.

"You should sleep some more," Sam says.

"Yeah."

"I will be here when you wake up, okay, Dean? I'll be here."

And with those words, Dean falls in a dreamless sleep.


End file.
